S&P 500 1,226.65 +.37%
Dow 10,968.45 +.26%
NASDAQ 2,093.68 +1.11%
Russell 2000 646.09 +.18
DJ Wilshire 5000 12,085.01 +.38
S&P Barra Growth 589.80 +.30%
S&P Barra Value 632.33 +.43%
Morgan Stanley Consumer 593.05 +.25%
Morgan Stanley Cyclical 785.30 +.13%
Morgan Stanley Technology 482.60 +1.78%
Transports 3,874.66 +1.14%
Utilities 363.30 +.43%
Put/Call .79 -3.66%
NYSE Arms .75 -30.91%
Volatility(VIX) 12.15 +1.84%
ISE Sentiment 174.00 +14.47%
US Dollar 82.73 +.25%
CRB 309.45 +.09%
Futures Spot Prices
Crude Oil 53.60 -.33%
Unleaded Gasoline 150.80 -.06%
Natural Gas 6.68 -.87%
Heating Oil 147.70 -.43%
Gold 435.80 +.14%
Base Metals 129.97 -.24%
Copper 149.60 +.13%
10-year US Treasury Yield 4.30% -.04%
Leading Sectors
Gaming +2.41%
Semis +2.28%
Networking +2.16%
Lagging Sectors
HMOs -.87%
Energy -.92%
Commodity -.93%
Market Movers
RIMM -5.11% after Piper Jaffray downgrade to Market Perform on competition worries.
CELG +16.7% after saying its experimental drug Revlimid worked so well in studies of people with a form of blood cancer that the trials are being stopped and all patients offered the treatment.
ICCI +20.1% after saying its management offered to buy out other investors in a transaction valuing Insight’s shares at $650 million.
HIB +21.11% after Capital One(COF) agreed to purchase it for $5.35B. COF -2.68%.
QCOM +4.8% after cutting 2Q sales estimate and raising 2Q eps forecast.
CTIC -47.9% after saying its experimental drug Xyotax failed to boost survival more than an older chemotherapy in a study of patients with non-small sell lung cancer.
UDI +25.95% after BAE Systems Plc, Europe’s biggest defense company, agreed to buy it for $3.97 billion.
GEOI +19.39% after on continuing optimism after strong 4Q report.
STR +7.18% after Morgan Stanley rated it Overweight.
TSRA +7.54% on no news.
BYD +6.26% on no news.
APCC +10.08% after UBS initiated it with a Buy rating.
HAE +5.98% on no news.
MSO -9.76% on continued profit-taking after Stewart’s release from jail.
Market Internals
NYSE Unusual Volume
NASDAQ Unusual Volume
NASDAQ 100 Heatmap
DJIA Quick Charts
Chart Toppers
Hot Spots
Option Dragon
Economic Data
None of note.
Recommendations
- Goldman Sachs: Reiterated Outperform on YUM, MDT, BSX., KO, RIG, DO and GE.
- Smith Barney: Said to Buy WFR, raised estimates, target $18. Reiterated Buy on TEX, target $58. Reiterated Buy on DNA, target $87.50. Reiterated Buy on WMT, target $65. Reiterated Sell on PGN, target $38.50. Reiterated Sell on SKS, target $12.50. Reiterated Sell on HIW, target $21. Said to Buy NSM, FCS and IRF on pullbacks. Reiterated Buy on ERTS, target $76.
- JP Morgan: Raised PLT to Overweight.
- Banc of America: Upgraded ANN to Buy, target $34. Expects employment reports to continue to surprise on the upside and to accelerate this spring.
- UBS: Rated APCC Buy, target $40. Raised NE to Buy. Raised WMB to Buy, target $23.
- Oppenheimer: Raised ABX to Sector Outperform, target $33.
- Merrill Lynch: Raised PX to Buy, target $55.
- Prudential: Raised TLB to Overweight, target $36. Downgraded BSX to Underweight., target $29. Raised MDT to Overweight, target $62. Raised MCD to Overweight.
- Morgan Stanley: Raised STR to Overweight, target $67.
- CSFB: Rated CPS Outperform, target $48.
Mid-day News
US stocks are higher mid-day as investors boost technology shares ahead of key mid-quarter updates, conference presentations and earnings reports. T-Mobile International AG plans to lower rates for wireless data transfers to spur the use of the technology, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported. Royal Philips Electronic NV plans to reduce its number of suppliers by a third to help cut costs and keep up with Asian competitors, Financial Times Deutschland reported. General Motors will provide discounts on a regional rather than a national basis to restrain expectations among consumers of large price cuts, the Wall Street Journal reported. Time Warner and GE’s NBC Universal plan to lower prices for DVDs in China, Russia and Mexico to fight counterfeiting and gain market share, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank of Japan Governor Fukui said Japan has no intention of diversifying its currency reserves, Reuters reported. D’Andrea Brothers LLC, a closely held LA-based company, has obtained exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute the US Army’s Hooah! Energy bar for the retail market, the Wall Street Journal reported. EBay is one of the top five companies targeted by computer hackers who use fake e-mails and Internet sites to collect clients’ personal information, the NY Times reported. China’s local governments have been exaggerating their economic growth rates reported to the central government, Xinhua News Agency reported. Apple Computer’s lawsuit to force Internet sites to disclose the identity of who provided leaked data about new Apple products may make courts decide who should be considered a journalist, the NY Times reported. If a court in San Jose, California, decides that bloggers are journalists, more people could be able to keep news sources confidential, the newspaper reported. Wells Fargo and Bank of America are upgrading automated teller machines with Internet technology to improve the efficiency of customer transactions, the NY Times said. Joe Liberman, a Connecticut Senator who was the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000, is angering some members of his party with his willingness to word with President Bush on trying to save the Social Security system, the NY Times reported. Nigeria’s President Obasanjo urged OPEC to “moderate the high price of oil,” AFP reported. Comcast is beginning to offer televised sports programs around the US amid speculation it might start a national sports network to compete with ESPN, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Foreign investment in the USA will bolster demand for the dollar, according to Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at Banc of America Capital, Barron’s reported. University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman said today she is stepping down, effective June 30 or when the Board of Regents finds a replacement, the AP reported. Hoffman’s five-year tenure included a football recruiting scandal and allowing a professor who compared victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to Nazi war criminals to keep his job, the AP said. Syrian soldiers in Lebanon will today start retreating to the eastern Bekaa Valley near the border after the Syrian and the Lebanese presidents meet in Damascus, Bloomberg reported. GE plans to sell as much as $2.36 billion of shares in its life and mortgage insurance unit, Genworth Financial, Bloomberg said. Google hired a top Microsoft engineer who was one of the six original members of the team that created the Windows NT operating system, Bloomberg said. Boeing ousted CEO Harry Stonecipher because of an affair with a female executive that violated the company’s code of conduct, Bloomberg reported. Honda Motor, stung by a 21% drop in Accord and Civic car sales this year, said it may have to offer cheaper loans and leases and lift incentives to dealers to bolster sales of its two best-selling US models, Bloomberg reported. Crude oil fell from a four-month high in NY after OPEC’s president said that the group can pump at least another 2 million barrels a day, Bloomberg said.
BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is substantially higher mid-day on gains in my networking, semiconductor and alternative energy longs. I exited a few commodity-related longs this morning and added a few new tech longs, thus leaving the Portfolio’s market exposure at 125% net long. One of my new longs is NTE and I am using a $23 stop-loss on this position. The tone of the market is modestly positive as the advance/decline line is slightly higher, sector performance is mostly positive and volume is ok. Measures of investor anxiety are mostly lower, however. Today’s overall market action is very positive as the DJIA, S&P 500 and Russell 2000 consolidate recent gains and the tech-heavy Nasdaq outperforms substantially. I expect the Nasdaq to take out resistance at around 2,110 in the next few days, led by Semis and Networkers. The current rally in the overall market likely has further to run as there is still an unusual amount of skepticism by many investors considering recent gains. I expect US stocks to trade modestly higher from current levels into the close on optimism over US economic growth, short covering, low long-term interest rates, stabilizing energy prices and bargain hunting.
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